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Conservatives battered in local elections as losses mount

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Conservatives battered in local elections as losses mount

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Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have suffered heavy defeats in elections across England and Wales, leaving the prime minister struggling to avert a general election rout but safe in office for now.

The results confirmed Tory MPs’ fears and the UK prime minister described the loss of Conservative councillors as “disappointing”, with Labour gaining seats in electoral battlegrounds across the country.

In the last big test of public opinion ahead of the general election expected this year, and with most of the council results declared, the Tories had lost almost half of the seats they were defending.

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They were also trounced in the Blackpool South parliamentary by-election, with a 26 per cent swing from Conservatives to Labour — the third-biggest since the second world war.

By Friday night the Tories had suffered a net loss of 371 council seats while retaining 468, according to PA data. Labour had made 204 gains, securing 1026 seats overall.

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, said it had been “a very good day” for his party, as he paid a celebratory visit to Rishi Sunak’s Richmond constituency, part of the new York and North Yorkshire mayoralty won by Labour.

The results suggested that Starmer was on course for a general election victory, but not a landslide. “This is clearly a bad result for the Conservatives,” said James Johnson, pollster and co-founder of JL Partners. But he added that Labour would have to do better at the general election to achieve a sizeable majority.

The BBC’s projection of an equivalent national vote share put Labour on 34 per cent, Conservatives on 25, Liberal Democrats on 17 and Others on 24, but pollsters note that people often vote differently in general elections. Most national polls give Labour a 20-point lead.

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Johnson said the BBC projection mirrored the nine-point lead Labour enjoyed in last year’s local elections, which was widely seen as enough for a bare majority, and well below the 17-point projected national vote lead enjoyed by Tony Blair in 1996, ahead of Labour’s landslide in 1997.

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Sunak appeared to gain some breathing space after the threat of a Conservative mutiny against his leadership receded. A victory by Lord Ben Houchen, the high-profile Tory mayor of Tees Valley, calmed nerves among Conservative MPs.

Houchen, a popular local figure who had distanced himself from Sunak and the Conservatives in the campaign, obtained a reduced majority of 18,789. He did not wear a blue rosette at his count.

The Conservatives also hope that Andy Street, the West Midlands mayor, who preferred an endorsement from former prime minister Boris Johnson to one from Sunak, will win a third term when votes are counted on Saturday. Labour insiders said Starmer’s position on the Gaza war may have cost the party Muslim votes in the region.

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On Saturday focus will be intense on the London mayoral contest, with rumours swirling that Tory candidate Susan Hall may have defied opinion polls and run Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan close.

Rightwing Conservative critics of Sunak on Friday pulled back from trying to topple him but urged him to tack to the right. One rebel source said that some Tory MPs were looking for an “off ramp” and that the Tees Valley result provided them with an excuse not to challenge the prime minister.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a Johnson supporter who submitted a no-confidence letter in Sunak last November, told the BBC: “It’s looking unlikely that the MPs are going to put the letters in. So we’ve got to pull together.”

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Projections that the Conservatives could lose half the council seats they held were based on results in 71 of the 107 councils being contested. Some voters in England and Wales were also electing mayors as well as police and crime commissioners.

Sir John Curtice, the veteran elections expert, said the results were “not far short” of catastrophic for the Conservatives and “one of the worst, if not the worst” result for the party in local elections for 40 years.

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Starmer’s focus on Friday was on Labour’s Blackpool South by-election victory, where the new MP Chris Webb beat the Conservatives’ David Jones with a 26 per cent swing. Reform UK came a narrow third, just 117 votes behind the Conservatives.

Labour overturned a Tory majority of 3,690 votes to take the parliamentary seat with a 7,607 majority. The seat was formerly held by Scott Benton, who was forced to quit in a lobbying scandal.

Reform UK, formerly the Brexit party and founded by Nigel Farage, secured 17 per cent of the vote in Blackpool South, one of the races it focused on, after standing candidates for only 12 per cent of contested council seats.

Reform UK is splitting the vote on the right, a threat that could intensify at the general election when it will field candidates across the country.

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It was not all good news for Labour. The party lost control of Oldham council in Greater Manchester, after ceding several seats to independents who stood on a pro-Palestine platform. It also lost seats in Newcastle.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s elections co-ordinator, admitted that the Gaza war was costing the party votes. “There’s no denying this is a factor in some parts of the country,” he said.

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Put your questions to George Parker and colleagues at a webinar for FT subscribers on Wednesday 8 May 1300-1400 UK (GMT+1). Register at ft.com/ukwebinar

Video: Sketchy Politics: can anything save Sunak?

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

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Trump Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to Extend Cease-Fire by Three Weeks

President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.

A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.

The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.

The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”

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Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”

But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.

In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.

Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.

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Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

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U.S. soldier charged with suspected Polymarket insider trading over Maduro raid

Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.

The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.

The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.

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According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.

Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”

Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.

The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.

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Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

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Senate Adopts GOP Budget, Laying the Groundwork to Fund ICE and Reopen DHS

The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.

Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.

Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.

Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.

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The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.

“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”

In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.

The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.

Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.

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“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”

Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.

The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.

Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.

Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.

While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.

Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.

The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

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Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.

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